1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of e-commerce and more particularly to a catalog display for an e-commerce system.
2. Description of the Related Art
E-commerce systems have evolved to provide virtual storefronts whose operational capabilities far exceed those of the traditional, brick and mortar store. Whereas in the brick and mortar store, each of the sales, marketing, order fulfillment, inventory, and customer service functions remain the separate responsibilities of corresponding business roles, in a well-defined e-commerce system, each of the sales, marketing, order fulfillment, inventory and customer service can be integrated in a single computing system in a highly automated fashion. Consequently, a more optimal business operation can result in which data flows between different functional subsystems seamlessly to facilitate the daily conduct of business managed by the e-commerce system.
In the prototypical e-commerce system, an on-line catalog of available goods and/or services for sale can be established along with associated pricing. Customers can be provided with a store front user interface through which customers can browse the on-line catalog. When a customer desires to purchase a product or service, the customer can so indicate causing the addition of the selected product or service to an on-line shopping cart, though it is also known to bypass the shopping cart model in favor of direct purchase model.
Generally, the catalog sub-system for an e-commerce site can provide a searchable selection of items for viewing by consumers. Consumers can navigate the catalog serially, by category, or search term in order to filter offered items to a manageable sub-set. Once a sub-set of items has been produced, a consumer can view an image of an item or other such product detail by selecting a link to the product within the sub-set. The consumer can view additional products from the sub-set by returning to the view of the sub-set and selecting a different link to a different product.
Oftentimes, consumers prefer to select a product or service for purchase through an iterative compare and contrast process between different offered items. To facilitate the comparison by the consumer of different product or service offering, a compare view can be provided in which different selected ones of the items in the sub-set are presented side by side on a feature by feature basis. In this way, consumers can visually identify differences among items in the sub-set. Notwithstanding, in many cases, end users prefer to browse different products without engaging in a tedious compare process. Yet, the single product view afforded by conventional catalog subsystems permits only a view of one product or service at a time.
At least one commercially available catalog sub-system provides for a composite view of a single product in relation to a streaming view of a sub-set of products. Specifically, it is known to stream a pictorial listing of product offerings in a tickertape fashion across the bottom of a display. The selection of one of the products in the streaming listing can result in the rendering of detailed product information within the same display. Notwithstanding, the display of detailed product information is limited to a single selected product in the streaming listing and a compare view is not possible. Moreover, the dynamic, streaming nature of the product listing can be distracting and clumsy for consumers seeking to browse product offerings at a varying pace.
At least one other commercial offering provides for a composite view of a product in respect to a fixed display of a product listing. In the latter circumstance, a static display of pictorial references to product offerings can be provided. The selection of one of the products in the static display can result in a magnified view of the pictorial reference to the selected product in the same display. Nevertheless, the magnified view differs from the view in the static display only in size and not content. Consequently, a different view of the product providing enhanced product information is lacking for the foregoing composite view.